The Lord Our Healer

Notes:

The Lord Our Healer    See Session Slides Here 

As with most doctrines there are extreme views when we take an absolute position regarding healing. Examples:

  • ‘All miraculous healing ended with Christ and the apostles’. This is not stated anywhere in Scripture. See Mark 16:17-18. The gift of healing is given to the Church and has not been withdrawn. God is Jehovah Rapha. He never changes.
  • ‘God healed the sick at Calvary and therefore you’re already healed’, ‘By His stripes we are healed’. But those who claim this often do not experience it, then go into denial.

What does the Bible teach?

  • No one got healed by having a correct doctrine of healing, but through faith in God.
  • Rophe found 70 times in the Old Testament and means to heal, cure, restore. It is not limited to physical healing.
  • One of the words used for healing in the New Testament sozo, means to make whole, Mk.6:56.
  • The Lord is for the body and the body is for the Lord. He has a plan for your life which you cannot do outside your body.
  • Jesus healed many without any prerequisite for salvation. But of course He wanted the whole man whole. He didn’t want a healthy body to go to hell with. Sadly, some only sought physical benefits, Jn.6:26-27.

Is healing in the atonement? ‘By His stripes we are healed’.

  • Yes, but not necessarily now. Our resurrected bodies have been purchased by the redemption of Jesus and will be healthy, immortal and incorruptible.
  • But God heals now and we can taste the powers of the age to come, Heb.6:5.

There are different reasons for healing:

  • Some were for the glory of God, Jn.11:4.
  • Others as signs to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, Matt.11:4-5.
  • Sometimes to confirm the Word.
  • Other times from compassion to relieve suffering, Matt.14:14.

There are different ministries of healing:

  • There is healing which is a part of the gospel ministry, Mark 16:17-18.
  • There is healing which is part of the pastoral ministry, ‘Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven’ (Jas.5:14-15). The Corinthian church. King Asa sinned and was sick and turned to doctors instead of repenting and turning to God. ‘And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians’ (2 Chron.16:12).
  • There is healing which is a special gift, not given to all.

There are different processes of healing:

  • Sometimes He heals instantaneously. Iaomai.
  • Sometimes He heals gradually. Therapeia, therapeuo. The process of healing. Examples, the 10 lepers. Mk.16:18. The cursing of the fig tree. ‘For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them’ (Mk.11:23-24). If it were instant we would not need to have faith.